Empty Bodies 3: Deliverance (Empty Bodies Series Book 3) (16 page)

Mary Beth screamed.

The young girl was inconsolable now, and Clint smiled like a child on Christmas morning. He reached down and grabbed Samuel by his hair, forcing him to watch the girl panic.

“Look at her, you piece of shit. You gonna let ‘er die? Are you?”

“God, please look after this child, for You are almighty, Lord,” Samuel said, ignoring Clint and continuing to pray.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see just how mighty God is here in a few minutes.”

Danny cussed at the creature, calling it ‘ugly’ and all kinds of other names. David’s attention fell to the young girl again. Her eyes were puffy, and he saw so much desperation in them. He watched as she looked at him and mouthed the words, “Please, I don’t wanna die.” She didn’t have a voice anymore.

It was finally more than even David could handle.

“I can’t do this,” David said, shaking his head. “I’m going inside.”

Clint scoffed. “You fucking kidding me?”

But David just turned around and headed for the house, leaving the girl behind, screaming for him to help her. While he knew he’d already punched his ticket to Hell over the last few days with the things he’d done, even he wasn’t cold enough to kill a child. He thought back to his teenage years and how his own father had abused him, his mother, and his little brother. There were a lot of things he could tolerate, but hurting a child wasn’t one of them.

“Pussy!” Clint spat at him.

But David just continued to walk toward the house, his head down, trying to ignore the screaming girl behind him.

He reached the patio and the two boys were still in the rocking chairs, swaying back and forth and chewing on gum, or perhaps even tobacco, he thought, as backward as these people were. They stared at him through the posts in the guardrail, then he walked up the creaking steps. He tried to ignore them, but he could see them glaring at him from the corner of his eye.

Creepy fuckin’ kids.

David took one last look out into the yard. Though he was a good distance away, the girl’s screaming sounded as if it were almost right in front of him, its high shriek piercing through the cloudy sky. Danny was waving his arms, attracting the Empty ever so closer to the table. David turned back around, pushed open the door, and headed inside.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jessica

“You sure that’s the place?” Gabriel asked.

Jessica turned to face him from the front seat. “I-I think so.”

“That doesn’t sound like such a sure answer,” Holly sneered.

Jessica ignored her, and Will chimed in.

“We followed the directions. There’s only one way to find out, I suppose.”

Jessica took a deep breath and nodded as Will put his hand on her shoulder.

“You sure you wanna do this?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said with confidence.

“We’ll be right behind you. I promise.”

Gabriel stepped out of the back seat, then coming to Jessica’s door and opening it for her to get out. She thanked him and hugged him.

“You got this,” Gabriel said. He jumped into the passenger seat.

Knowing they had to be close to the farmhouse where they’d find Dylan, they’d parked the truck off the side of the road. Jessica turned away from the truck and started walking away.

She wore a backpack over her good shoulder to make her look more like a drifter. Even though she didn’t really need it, she wore the sling on her injured arm. Will figured this might make her appear more innocent to strangers, and like someone who was in desperate need of help.
 

The ground sloped off the shoulder into a ditch, and the tall brush blocked the view of the land beyond. While she didn’t know exactly which one of these houses was the one, she had a strange feeling she’d know it when she saw it.

Jessica passed the first driveway and looked through the break in the brush to see the remains of a home. It had been burned down and, by the looks of it, the accident had happened within the past week. Some of the white structure of the front of the house still stood, though most of the remains had been scarred black. Jessica turned back to the road and continued on.

Through a break in the brush, she was able to look into the vast front yard of the next home. She slowed down when she was sure she saw people outside. Jessica walked through the shallow ditch and kneeled down in front of the brush. She peeked through a gap and saw a few people gathered around a table. A large man held some kind of stick and moved like he was fighting something, but a small shack blocked most of her view. She looked back to the truck and gave the group a thumbs up, signaling she was pretty sure this was the place.

She made her way back onto the road and headed for the driveway. As she approached it, she saw the sign next to the mailbox that read “Hopkins Farm”, confirming this was the place that the man had given direction to over the radio. The driveway was a curved dirt path leading up toward the house. A large bush stood about halfway up, blocking her view of the front of the home, as well as the space where the people stood in the yard.

As she approached the bush, a foul smell hit her nostrils and she noticed flies buzzing around the tall grass that surrounded it. She covered her mouth and wretched, seeing a collection of rotted bodies under the large bush.

Once she passed this bush, she knew she’d be in full-view of the people standing outside. She closed her eyes, then stepped into the open.

When Jessica stepped around the corner, though, she couldn’t believe what she saw.

She now had a clear view of what the large man with the pole was wrestling with. It was an Empty. Her mouth agape, her gaze focused on a table under a tree. A man stood beside it, while another kneeled next to it. On top of the table, a figure with long hair struggled. The person looked like they were bound to the table unwillingly.

What’s going on here?

One of the men standing by the table looked over toward Jessica and moved around it. She raised her good arm to show him that she was harmless.

“Stop right there!” the man called out.

Jessica froze.

“What the hell you doin’ on my land?”

“I’m just a drifter,” Jessica lied. “I’ve been out here on my own a couple of days. I just saw you people and was hoping I could get some help. My shoulder is hurt and I haven’t eaten in a couple of days. Please, could you help me?”

The man looked around. “Do I look like someone who wants to help you? Get the fuck outta here!”

Pushing her luck, Jessica took a couple of steps forward. “Please, I won’t stay long.”

Then she heard the girl on the table scream, “Help me!” She sounded like a child.

“What’s going on here?” Jessica asked.

The man reached around to the back of his pants and brought it out with a gun. He pointed it toward her and she heard the first shot go off, then ricochet off the ground nearby. Jessica stumbled back, falling onto the ground as another shot went off. She hurried to her feet and dove behind the brush. Forgetting about the dead bodies, she went to the ground next to them, and then turned and threw up.

Two more gunshots rang out, and then she heard the roaring engine of the truck behind her.

***

Will

The first gunshot had been hard to distinguish, but the ones that followed confirmed that Jessica was probably in trouble.

“Go! Go!” Gabriel yelled.

Will hung his head out the window and shouted, “Hang on!” to Marcus, who sat in the bed of the truck. In the back seat, Sarah cried and Holly cocked a pistol. Will punched the gas, the tires screeching on the asphalt, and raced toward the driveway.

He made the left turn onto the dirt path, barely slowing down and kicking up a cloud of dust behind them. Jessica was lying behind a bush, and he thought of stopping for her, but she waved him on and yelled, “Keep going!”

The truck reached the other side of the large bush and they found themselves out in the open. The long driveway led all the way up to an old barn, which sat near a large farmhouse. Just off the side of the path, he saw the small group of people standing around a table. They all looked toward him.

Then he saw something strange that made him stop the truck.

“Why did you stop?” Holly demanded.

He pointed toward the group and said to the passengers, “What the fuck is going on here?”

A girl screamed on the table. Nearby, a large man had an Empty trapped at the end of an animal control pole. The two groups just stared at each other. Will watched one of the men reach into his pocket and stuff something into the mouth of the girl on the table. Then he knelt behind the table, using the girl as a shield.

“What the fuck you doin’ on my property?” the man shouted.

“We have reason to believe you may have someone we’re looking for,” Will replied.

“And what goddamn reason is that?”

“Did you kidnap a child? Dylan is his name.”

The man laughed. “You’ve got to be fuckin’ shittin’ me. Y’all the ones that killed Trent and Cody?”

“We didn’t kill them. You got duped into thinking so.” Will swallowed. “Is David here, too?”

The man ignored the question. “Boy, if you don’t get the fuck off my property right now, I guarantee you’re going to regret it.”

Will looked over to Gabriel, whose expression had turned cold.

“We aren’t leaving,” Gabriel said.

Will’s sweaty palms gripped the steering wheel. He could feel his heart beating against his ribcage.

“Look, just give us the boy and let the girl on the table go. No one has to get hurt.”

“No one gets hurt? That depends on you! Tell you what… you’ve got to the count of three to turn that piece of shit around and get the fuck off my land! If you don’t, I can promise you some folk ‘bout to get hurt!” the man threatened.

Will could feel all the eyes in the truck on him, awaiting his next move.

“One!”

He glanced into the mirror again and saw that Sarah was crying, the young nurse scared out of her mind. Holly’s face was much more determined. Dylan had become like a much younger brother to her, and she wanted to get him back almost as much as Gabriel did.

“Two!”

Marcus remained in the bed of the truck, gun ready. But it was another look at Gabriel’s face that confirmed Will’s decision. It was a coldness Will hadn’t seen in his friend. Dylan was here, and Gabriel was going to get him back no matter what. Then, a thought brought with it a chill. It was almost as if Will could feel that David was near. His eyes narrowed, and he turned his hand over and over again on the wheel.

“Three!”

***

David

By the time the first gunshot went off, David had made it halfway up the stairs. He turned around and shuffled back down to the first floor, hurrying to the front window. A truck raced toward the picnic table and his so-called associates. He’d started to reach for the door when he recognized one of the men in the back of the truck.

Marcus.

“Oh, shit.”

David checked his waist to make sure he still had the Glock and the knife. Both were there, securely affixed to his side. The gunshots had attracted Cindy to the window and she now stood beside him.

“Son of a bitch,” Cindy said.

The two girls who’d been sitting on the sofa watching television all morning had been unmoved from the gunshots outside. The front door opened and the two boys entered from the porch.

“Get to your fuckin’ room,” Cindy said to the two girls and the boys. “And lock the door. Don’t let no one in, you hear me?” The kids hurried up the stairs. Cindy then looked over to David. “Wait here.”

The woman hurried into a room on the other side of the living area. When she reappeared, she had a rifle over her shoulder and was checking to make sure a pistol in her hand was loaded.

“Go around back and head for the barn,” David said. “You might be able to flank ‘em if you go that way. I’ll take the front.”

The gap in the woman’s teeth showed and she nodded. “Good idea.”

She ran through the kitchen toward the back door. Before she fell out of sight, Cindy turned around and wished David luck. He acknowledged her with a nod, and then she disappeared.